UNDER-fire rail infrastructure company Network Rail will today publish a report into the engineering overruns which wrecked travel plans for thousands of train passengers over the New Year period.

UNDER-fire rail infrastructure company Network Rail will today publish a report into the engineering overruns which wrecked travel plans for thousands of train passengers over the New Year period.

The report is expected to be highly critical of the performance of the engineering projects’ contractors which led to travel chaos on the West Coast line between Birmingham and Northampton.

But the report is likely to do little to deflect the flak away from Network Rail which had overall control of the work.

The £415 million work on the West Coast at Rugby and Nuneaton in Warwickshire closed a large section of the line, forcing passengers to take buses between Birmingham and Northampton.

The work should have been completed by the end of December 30, but Network Rail, at short notice, asked for and got an extra day - December 31 - for the work.

In the event the job was not completed for a further three days, with full services not returning until January 4.

Network Rail’s investigation has run in parallel to one started by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) which is expected to be published at the end of February.

ORR has already fined Network Rail £2.4 million for a signalling work overrun at Portsmouth in 2006.

Earlier this week Mr Coucher said: “Far too many passengers were inconvenienced over the holiday period and we are taking that very seriously. We at Network Rail have taken responsibility and we reiterate our apology.

“Nonetheless, I wanted personally to hear explanations from the relevant contractors. What happened was totally unacceptable and we have to learn lessons, so it does not happen again.”

Next Wednesday, Network Rail chiefs and bosses of one of the companies involved in the engineering work, Bechtel, are expected to face a fierce grilling from MPs when they appear before the House of Commons Transport Committee to talk about the delays.